07 May 2012

Disinformation and anti-propaganda campaign against Thorium and LFTR reactors

I could not leave unnoticed that a relatively small group of people (or is it only one man with nothing better to do?) are engaging in an intentional campaign of disinformation on the internet about the supposed disadvantages of the new promising nuclear energy source on the block, thorium, and specifically Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTR), which are most often associated with thorium nuclear fuel cycle. This technology has recently been the subject of a renewed interest worldwide, and Japan, China, the UK, as well as private US, Czech and Australian companies have expressed intent to develop and commercialise it.

Specifically, someone with the nickname Kevin Meyerson is spamming Twitter with anti-thorium propaganda 24 hours a day. Yes, that Kevin Meyerson who was banned from Quora.com for "failing to collaborate with others and purposefully making edits against consensus view has effected no positive change in behavior, making personal attacks against other users; making blanket inflammatory statements; reverting edits intended to bring a neutral tone to leading questions; blocking other users to prevent them from replying to his contributions on the site, and using sock puppet accounts". Apparently, others have seen through their disinformation campaign as well.

Does this group know something that people in the mentioned countries, working on the development of this reactor do not?

I realise no technology or machinery is perfect, without downsides or various tradeoffs (you can read about real downsides or design challenges of the LFTR concept in the corresponding section of the (in my opinion) very well written Wikipedia article linked above). I think no one would be opposed rational, objective criticism of anything, especially such an important and potentially dangerous thing that is a new nuclear reactor. But is this what these people are doing? Is their critique factual and able to whistand closer scrutiny, or is it an amalgamation of biased unsubstantiated opinions, misinformation, strawmans and outright falsehoods?
From what I have read, it is the latter. So lets examine what ammunition they tend to use.

And finally, word by word rebuttal, in neat picture form:
(click to enlarge)

In addition to these, they spam various works about the use of thorium fuel in today's solid fueled light water reactors, and attribute the disadvantages of this kind of reactors to LFTRs, apparently counting on the fact that layman reader will not notice that the text deals with the use of thorium in completely different type of nuclear reactor. But LFTR's deviate strongly from today's operating commercial power reactors, and even from thorium fueled light water reactors. Low pressure operation (rather than high pressure), liquid fuel (versus solid fuel), use of molten salts (rather than water or gasses), online reprocessing and refuelling using pyroprocesses (opposed to offsite processing using water solvents), LFTRs are different in almost every aspect, and almost all disanvantages of thorium fuel cycle in LWRs are not present in LFTRs, so this amounts to criticising a strawman.

What could lead these people to systematically spread such intentional falsehoods about Liquid fluoride thorium reactors?
Is it because they are unaware that they are falsehoods (which I highly doubt, since they have been repeatedly debunked when they post them)?
Perhaps they are ideologically opposed to all nuclear energy in principle, to the point that they are able to lie just to achieve their agenda?
Or maybe (tin foil hat on) they do not really believe this stuff, but someone pays them to do it, someone who would lost a lot if thorium and LFTR delivered on its promises to solve our energy problems (or gained a lot if it wont)? People do almost anything for money..
(/tin foil hat off)
Or do they simply want to watch the world burn (coal)?

14 comments:

This kind of corrective information needs to be broadcast thruout the web. I have seen lies being spread by people who are trying to present a balanced view, but did not have the resources to fact check. The worse cases concern the cost of fuel and dangers of refueling.

Look for NO-Thorium international demo in Paris during the last Fukushima anniversaryLook for the prosecution about the Thorium contamination in Italy (Sardinia). 20 military hierarchs (NATO - OTAN) investigated by the magistracy for murder.Look for: "Sardinia: Militarization, Contamination and Cancer in Paradise" on the web.Look for this grat Document made by the statal TV France 3: "Uranium et Thorium, scandale en puissance"

Thorium myth has been debunked - Thorium is NOT "green", NOT "safe", NOT "peaceful".

Paul DenlingerPaul DenlingerI was involved in discussions with Kevin Meyerson, and I know something about his behavior. I am not in any way affiliated with Quora. Let me give you some reasons:* Kevin was not interested in real dialogue; he was only interested in advancing his position that the Chinese govt repeatedly makes human rights violations. Nobody really disagreed with him about that, but he wanted to make everyone accept his position, then when some refused, he accused us of being in cahoots with the Chinese government, or of being their agents. Many like myself did not take kindly to these accusations, and complained to Quora.* Kevin, for lack of a better word, was a jerk. Many of his arguments had some merit, but by being a jerk, he undercut his own positions.* If he was only being a jerk, no one would care. But making ad hominem attacks on people, he crossed the line.* Quora has many people who live in China, and/or know China pretty well. Kevin had a strong position against the Chinese government on human rights, a position which many of us could sympathize with to one degree or another. However, it soon became apparent that he really DID NOT China that well. It's hard to sympathize with someone who is ranting against the Chinese government, makes ad hominem attacks, accuses others of being sympathetic to the Chinese govt, yet, at the same time, does not know Chinese very well.* Kevin Meyerson cross-blogged on his own blog that another Quora member was an agent of the Chinese government. FYI this person is a well-known media person who lives in Beijing who would be hurt seriously if these accusations were taken seriously.

I hope that this gives you a clear idea of why Kevin Meyerson was banned. Quora is better without him.

Thanks, I was just about to post this.Any way to get DreamChaser to update his main post to include these. I got a couple more to post. Perhaps there is a Debunk Page that is better known that these can be compiled on? If not, should we start one?